Gaunt and Starved
by genies
Summary: A drabble collection for Gormlaith Gaunt and the people she has held and lost.
1. Chapter 1

**Written for 2 Week Drabble Wars at Hogwarts (prompt: "There's a lady in a dirty nightgown that I see in my dreams." -** ** _The Conjuring_** **)**

 **Written for Caesar's Palace Prompts (prompt: parched)**

 **WC: 100**

...

There's a lady in a dirty nightgown that I see in my dreams. The bottom of her skirt is stained with mud, and it whirls around her like a furious tornado. Her arms hang a few feet from her sides, and her head is thrown back in a grimace. Yet, the grimace is powerful. I lick my lips and feel the chapped crust. My throat is parched, and I imagine my veins are shriveled as well.

She stares at me from beneath her fluttering eyelids.

I stare back.

This is how it goes every night.

She opens her mouth. "Sister."


	2. Chapter 2

**Written for 2 Week Drabble Wars at Hogwarts (prompt: "If you touch my [son/daughter/mother/father/etc] again, I'll f*cking kill you!" -** ** _The Babadook)_**

 **Written for the Caesar's Palace Prompts at Caesar's Palace (prompts: fury, eclipse, moon)**

 **WC: 337**

...

Kissing the tulips that were planted on the box in the window, Gormlaith looked through the open window at the baby sleeping in its crib. With a bored gaze, she propped her face up by her window, and the light of the moon was temporarily eclipsed by her face. Gormlaith laid her chin on the windowsill, and the moon lit the baby's form again. What a fragile creature.

She lifted herself through the window and tread over to the crib with apprehensive feet. This was her niece? How much she had missed since she and her sister were estranged.

She laid her palm on the baby's head and smoothed back its hair with her bony fingers.

"You are so small," she murmured. Her fingers clenched.

Suddenly, the door behind her flew open and crashed against the wall with a bang. Gormlaith jumped back, flinging her hand and knocking the baby and waking it.

Her sister stood in the doorway, her form a silhouette against the candlelight from the hallway. Her wand was drawn against her side, and she snarled. "If you touch my daughter again, I'll kill you."

Gormlaith drew her wand, trying to block out the baby's piercing shrieks. "You couldn't."

"Never doubt the power of a mother's love," Riognach spat, "Gormlaith." She advanced towards her sister, her shoulders tense, but her wrist loose. "I know some nasty hexes. You might remember."

Gormlaith nodded as Riognach became darker and darker as she advanced further into the nursery. With her robes draped over her, she looked like a dementor or ghostly creature from the otherworld.

"Why did you come?" Riognach asked. "I thought you didn't want anything to do with me."

"Slytherins are loyal to their families," said Gormlaith. "I wanted to check on you."

Riognach shifted her body until she was protecting the crib from Gormlaith's reach. Then she waved her wand and flung a jinx across the room. "Begone!"

Gormlaith put up a shield before spitting in her sister's direction and Disapparating with a crack.


	3. Chapter 3

**Prompts: [** **"You want to be treated like an adult, but you don't act like one!" -** ** _Sinister_** **] from the 2 Week Drabble Wars at Hogwarts, and [violence] from Caesar's Palace.**

 **The scene below expands on the duel between Chadwick and Gormlaith.**

 **WC: 122**

...

Streams of light came out of her wand one after another, but they were not just streams of light. Deadly they were, and Gormlaith intended for it to be so.

But her opponent would not give up so easily. Perhaps it would be a good time to parry in a different kind of way.

"You are losing, boy!" she shrieked above the noise of the duel.

The boy did not respond, just kept firing curses.

"You want to be treated like an adult, but you don't act like one!" she said. "If you want to spare your own life, lay down your wand."

The young man's face hardened into a glare. "It is not my own life that I want to spare."


	4. Chapter 4

Wc: 135

AU where Gormlaith kills Isolt.

* * *

Gormlaith stood triumphantly over Isolt's still body, cackling as she raised her head to the sky and shot a stream of green light from her wand. It never hurt to terrify before going in for the kill. And this time, her intended kill was the one who Isolt had married.

"James," she shouted, "if that is your name. You have no power here among witches!"

"Well, can we agree to disagree?" James flung a pan at Gormlaith's face while she was still off guard. It caught her right on the nose, and she fell back, knocked out cold.

"If you're gonna start killing, you best start make sure I'm all the way dead, because I'll come back and make you my bitch." James, with a shudder and a sob, finished the job with a knife.


	5. Chapter 5

Wc: 161

Webster hid in the laundry basket when Gormlaith attacked. He had never said his prayers before bed like his friends did back at his old home, but now he fervently tried to make up for it. He clasped his hands together and shut his eyes tight. He didn't even mind the smell of the dirty laundry, as long as it kept him hidden.

"The bogeyman is real, and you found him," Webster said to no one in particular. Why did he deserve this?

Isolt was supposed to do the laundry the next day, and James was going to play with him.

William started to think about his great aunt as he waited. He tried to imagine her form and what she would look like. Once, he had a dream in which a witch with skin as pale as snow and hair as black as night followed him through the woods.

Would she look like that?

He hoped he wouldn't find out.


	6. Chapter 6

**WC: 111**

She swung open the door, and the bells above it jangled violently.

"I need a wand."

Gormlaith remembered the moment that caused this very clearly. She had walked into her room and reached her hand out to grasp her wand, which was always in the same, familiar place. But she felt nothing.

At first, she had thought that it had rolled onto the floor. When that wasn't the case, a fit to rival that of a tsunami ensued. She flew down the stairs and headed to Ollivanders immediately.

Ollivader looked at her with a shrew smile. "How can you go through life pretending that you're happy?"

Gormlaith frowned. "A wand, please."


	7. Chapter 7

**WC: 119**

The bar was dimly light, only by one lantern at each table. The man Gormlaith was watching leaned towards the table and picked up his mug of ale. Only a few more pints and he'd be shouting his secrets out for the whole world to hear.

His friend sat across the table, doing the same.

"I have to know if she's all right," said the man of interest.

"The girl you've been seeing?"

The first man tilted his head back and drowned his ale. "The one."

"William, why?"

"Because I love her!"

His friend shook his head, chuckling.

 _Very amusing_ , Gormlaith thought. _Won't stop me from gutting him later, though_.

She only hoped that Riognach didn't reciprocate the feelings.


	8. Chapter 8

**WC: 122**

Every evening, Gormlaith would practice her curses and hexes against a target outside. The name on the target would vary from day to day, but in the recent weeks, the name had mostly been "Morrigan."

Ever since Isolt fled, Gormlaith had been in particularly bad humor. As she sharpened her skills, she talked to "Morrigan" about her problems.

"So, Morrigan," she spat. "Somehow you are the ancestor of the dirty creature that married my sister. And then the dirty creature that took my wand and ran away.

"Morrigan, if you were so special, why would your descendents father and mother Mudbloods and squibs?

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to get hung up on some rumour," she snarled, and hurled another curse.


	9. Chapter 9

**WC: 149**

 **modern AU**

Gormlaith laid on her bed, her hands tucked behind her head as she looked up at the poster hanging on her wall.

In the past few months, she had become completely infatuated with only the most perfect man on earth. His dark locks and his stony gaze made her insides flutter whenever she imagined his eyes fixed on hers.

"Salazar," she sighed, reveling in how the name sounded on her tongue.

The man in question held a black electric guitar. A streak of green, presumably a snake, ran down the neck of the guitar and to its base. Gormlaith liked to imagine that the cord inserted into the guitar from the amp was the tail of the snake.

Gormlaith heard her mother call her from downstairs.

With a groan, she sat up, pressed a kiss to the poster, said, "I love you. And, I have a condom," and headed out.


	10. Chapter 10

**WC: 114**

Gormlaith walked up to the school that her neice had built, feeling a sort of bitter defeat well up inside of her.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Gormlaith had told Isolt when she was young. Often, this sentence would precede a killing of an animal that strayed too close to their property.

And now, Isolt had done many things Gormlaith wouldn't do.

Her daughter, Riognach, played on the lawn. Gormlaith lurked in the shadows, her cape drawn tightly around her. Riognach was so small, just barely strong enough to toddle around, often scooting or crawling more than walking.

Gormlaith raised her eyebrows. If Riognach weren't sullied by non-magic blood, she might be adorable.


	11. Chapter 11

**Wc: 202**

Gormlaith made her way around the cottage where she peeked inside a window. It was always best to get to know your battle grounds before you attacked, and Gormlaith was surveying every room and obstacle in the yard to make sure things went smoothly. Her new wand didn't work as her old wand did, but she had some ancient magical tricks up her sleeve.

"You can't get jealous of every woman that I talk to!"

Gormlaith heard a familiar, but aggravated, voice say back firmly, "I am not jealous. I was just asking."

"Obviously," said the man.

Gormlaith hid behind a rose bush with a gasp and cast a notice-me-not charm. Someone was coming out of the cottage.

She peeked around the corner when she realized it was a child.

A little girl sat on the bench. From Gormlaith's previous visits to the cottage, she knew that her name was Martha.

Martha sat on the steps and put her hands on her cheeks with a sigh. "I hate it when they fight," she mumbled. "Not that it's often, but..."

Gormlaith softened, but not too much, looking at the little girl who was so vulnerable. She just might regret having to kill her.


	12. Chapter 12

**WC: 105**

William the Pukwudgie was not in a good mood when he showed up. Of course, this was entirely because Isolt had not called upon him for years, and only when she was in trouble again would she utter his name. He felt used.

But he came to her without reluctance. If Isolt needed him, he would be there.

When he arrived at her cottage, he was not sure what to expect. A raging aunt with a mean streak was not it. Wasting no time, he drew an arrow.

"You're cute when you're violent.," he muttered angrily, before shooting an arrow at her chest.


	13. Chapter 13

**wc: 186**

Tom Riddle looked down at his book with extreme care, taking in every word bit by bit, trying to extract every possible piece of information from it. He had been interested in learning about his ancestors, and now that he had found Gormlaith Gaunt, he was very impressed. She was a much better wizard than any of his parents.

Slowly, he drifted off to sleep.

"Ahem," he heard. Tom snapped up, hoping he hadn't drooled on the book.

Before him stood a short, bony woman with dark, black hair and a piercing gaze. "Why are you asleep on _my_ book?"

"I can't believe you're still alive! Did you come back as a ghost?" Tom asked.

"Some would say that. I heard your mind calling me from afar and came to assist you."

"Well, I am on a quest to do some very advanced magic that would be in my benefit. I did not mean to call you."

"What's done is done," said Gormlaith with a wave of her hand. "If you need advice, my advice is to not be caught unaware by friends of your enemy."


	14. Chapter 14

**wc: 108**

"I don't take orders from no fucking woman!" The man spat at her feet and chewed on his jerky a bit more. "Having a woman on board is bad luck, anyway. Scram!"

Gormlaith frowned. Of course this would happen; she should have foreseen it. Now, she would just have to do what Isolt did to get past these filthy Muggles. "I understand," she said, then turned swiftly from the ship. A few spells would do the job.

She came back with a new set of clothes, tied up hair that was nestled in a cap, and a new name: William Sayre. At least it sounded appropriately Muggle.


End file.
